Chapter 27 (1/2)

Tian Dahua felt like he was flying. He had never expected that Lin Jingzhe would actually come.

His heart, which had been beating fast ever since he received Lin Jingzhe’s first phone call, sped up until it was pounding. He shook Lin Jingzhe’s hand a few times, so excited he was unable to speak; it took him a long moment before he returned to his senses and stepped aside. “Ah, this won’t do. The airport is full of people, it’s not a place to talk. You just got off the plane, Mr. Lin, you must be tired. Please come this way—I booked a hotel for you, let’s go there first so you can rest.”

Tian Dahua splurged—the car he had prepared was a luxury version. In the early nineties, there weren’t many car models available in China; Tian Dahua had rented one that ranked close to the top of the pyramid.

Tian Dahua personally closed the car door for Lin Jingzhe and placed his luggage in the trunk. When the friend who had tagged along saw his eagerness, he reached out to grab his arm. “Old Tian, are you sure this is the right person? You dragged us to the airport to wait for some big shot for over two hours, and that’s the one who came? Isn’t this just some kid? Why would you…”

“Shut up!” Tian Dahua snapped at him. “Are you an idiot? Don’t speak if you don’t know what you’re talking about! ‘Just some kid,’ really, your eyes must just be there for decoration…”

After entering the suite on the top level of the Garden Hotel which had been booked by Tian Dahua, Lin Jingzhe strolled to the half-open window to look out at the park below.

This hotel, which had opened only a few months prior, would have an outstanding reputation in the future. From the treatment he enjoyed since exiting the plane, Lin Jingzhe could sense Tian Dahua’s sincerity. He accepted the cup of tea the man hurriedly prepared, and cradled it in his palm.

Smiling, Tian Dahua watched him drink the tea. “You haven’t visited Shen City for nearly two months, Mr. Lin—now that you’re finally back, I must do my best to perform the duties of a host. I’ve booked tables in the hotel’s Cantonese restaurant and the most famous club in our city…”

“Mr. Tian,” Lin Jingzhe interrupted him with a smile. “Thank you for taking so much trouble, but while I will certainly have dinner with you, let’s put off the club until next time—I have to return to Yan City soon.”

“Oh, that’s a pity.” Tian Dahua naturally agreed—how could he dare to disagree? As he watched Lin Jingzhe look out of the window for a while, then saunter back to the sofa and leisurely sip his tea, his heart burned with anxiety. He gritted his teeth and began, “Mr. Lin, the stock we talked about…”

“Oh, right!” Lin Jingzhe put on an expression as if he had just remembered. He didn’t make a move to rise from the sofa, and only replied unconcernedly, “Why are you so worried? Isn’t that why I came here?”

Tian Dahua sat opposite him. Though he didn’t dare urge him, he felt as if a fire was burning under his buttocks, making it hard for him to sit still. Every time he faced Lin Jingzhe, he had the illusion of looking into a deep lake or an unfathomable abyss. Though he was older and more experienced, he knew that the higher one stood, the scarier it was when one could not see the ground anymore.

Lin Jingzhe looked at him, then sighed and leaned against the back of the sofa. “Mr. Tian, this mindset won’t do. If you act like this, then you’re already out of the game.”

Tian Dahua wiped the sweat on his forehead. He realized that his thoughts were no secret to Lin Jingzhe and said, a little embarrassed, “Please make allowances for me, Mr. Lin. You can see how Shen City’s stock market is right now—time is literally money! Every second that passes with me out of the market, is a second where others are making money that I could be earning.”

As he spoke, he looked at Lin Jingzhe, but the youth didn’t reply, only fixed a profound gaze upon him. After a while, he sighed and shook his head slightly.

Lin Jingzhe didn’t make things difficult for Tian Dahua—he only rested for a moment longer before accompanying the man to the securities exchange. Tian Dahua remained solemn and alert the whole way there. After they arrived, he got out the car and vigilantly scanned the surroundings, making sure there were no suspicious people nearby. Only after he was satisfied did he open the door for Lin Jingzhe. “It’s safe, Mr. Lin, you can get off.”

Lin Jingzhe held 170,000 shares, placing him among the big hitters. The current price of Aeon Technology’s shares was a little more than 21 yuan per share, so the market value of his stocks had risen to over three and a half million yuan in total.

Tian Dahua was overjoyed by the final result of the negotiation because Lin Jingzhe was willing to sell 50,000 shares to him.

With the current market conditions, the trader had hardly ever been entrusted with such a large transaction. He didn’t have time to be surprised though, because the anxious Tian Dahua continuously urged him to hurry with the formalities.

The trendlines on the stock chart were still going up, but looking at their growth no longer made Tian Dahua distressed—the 50,000 shares he now owned did a good job of setting his mind at ease.

The big cruise ship had set off a long time ago. He chased after it in his small boat, rowing as if his life depended on it, and had finally managed to catch up.

Tian Dahua’s eyes were riveted on the stock market board. He snapped out of his daze a long moment later and promptly glanced over at Lin Jingzhe, afraid he would feel slighted by his lack of attention. Seeing Lin Jingzhe reading the latest financial magazine, he breathed a sigh of relief.

These past two days, his emotions had wildly oscillated between excitement and worry, but now his confused brain recovered a bit of clarity.

In fact, he still had some misgivings.

For example, he really couldn’t figure out why Lin Jingzhe agreed to sell him this stock. It was a hen that was laying golden eggs every minute!

Tian Dahua did not doubt that the young man was much more farsighted than himself. When the stock exchange opened, the financial circle had adopted a wait-and-see attitude, yet Lin Jingzhe calmly and confidently threw his chips on the table, allowing him to reap in the profits. Every decision he made must have some deep meaning.

When he bought stocks, he was definitely optimistic about the stock market. If he was now dumping them…

Was the situation changing?

At that thought, Tian Dahua broke out in a cold sweat, but he didn’t have the courage to ask outright. After hesitating for a long time, he decided to take a roundabout approach. “Mr. Lin, you still have 120,000 shares left. Should I help you find…”

Lin Jingzhe raised a hand, interrupting him. “No hurry, I’m keeping the rest for now.”

Hearing this, Tian Dahua’s runaway imagination immediately calmed down. He nodded hurriedly and said, with an embarrassed smile, “You made a special trip here, Mr. Lin, so I thought you wanted to sell them all. I’ve been hanging around here recently, and I’ve become acquainted with several bosses much bigger than me. Right now, it’s hard to find people willing to part with the shares they own, so perhaps you can get a better price than expected…”

Holding the open magazine, Lin Jingzhe listened to him, his head slightly tilted with a small smile on his face.

“You’re too anxious, Mr. Tian. I will certainly sell these stocks, but not now.”

The only reason he sold the shares to Tian Dahua was because he needed money. The last time he was in Shen City, he had created a fake company with a registered capital of 200,000 yuan, for which Tian Dahua was the intermediate guarantor. This had to be paid off within three months. However, before he could dissolve the company, he needed to repay the bank’s six-month loan.

Until 1993, the domestic stock market was in a stage of rapid development, and there was almost never any significant declining trend in prices. Although in the near future, the state would take steps to regulate Shen City’s stock market, Lin Jingzhe knew it would only slow the rise. If he didn’t need to pay off his loans, he would never have decided to sell his shares.

He smiled at Tian Dahua, who looked somewhat awkward now that his thoughts had been seen through, and patted him on the shoulder. “Mr. Tian, we might be businessmen, but it doesn’t mean that everything we do has to be for profit, does it? We’re friends, so I’m naturally willing to help you out—as for the others, I can’t be bothered to care.”

Tian Dahua was so embarrassed he wished the ground would open up and swallow him whole. “Mr. Lin, don’t get me wrong, I didn’t mean…”

Lin Jingzhe nodded good-naturedly. “It’s fine, I understand.”

After that, Tian Dahua didn’t dare to talk randomly again; he felt like he had acted like a shameless scoundrel in front of Lin Jingzhe. So, when the next day arrived and Lin Jingzhe asked to go to the bank to repay the loan, he was puzzled but didn’t ask any questions, only reminding Lin Jingzhe that there were still a few months before the deadline.

Lin Jingzhe rested, leaning against the car window with his entire body emanating a sense of lethargy. “I know, but I have to pay it back before I shut down my company,” he replied nonchalantly.

Tian Dahua was shocked. “Is your company in trouble, Mr. Lin? But you only opened it two months ago…?”

Lin Jingzhe was unruffled. “Ah, it’s just that I miscalculated. I didn’t think about this problem at the time, but Shen City is too far away from Yan City and I find traveling back and forth too troublesome.”

Tian Dahua glanced in the rearview mirror and caught sight of Lin Jingzhe pinching the bridge of his nose; the youth’s face looked tired.

If Lin Jingzhe really lived in Yan City, then having a company based in the Shen City was inconvenient indeed. As he thought that, a funny feeling appeared in Tian Dahua’s heart, as though he had seen a sage who never made mistakes do something stupid.

Poker-faced, he said, “All right, I’ll help you take care of this.”

All the expenses, such as transaction fees, were paid by Tian Dahua, so after the transaction was finished, Lin Jingzhe had more than one million yuan on hand—returning half a million was no problem.

Thanks to Tian Dahua’s help, paying off the loan, along with the accompanying interest and liquidated damages for prepayment, went quickly. The formalities were completed well before it was time for lunch.

After this was dealt with, they went to close the company. In 1990, it was an easy process—an intermediary guarantor could accomplish this by making up whatever reason they wanted. This was why there was real money in being an agent like Tian Dahua, and why Lin Jingzhe went to such great pains to bluff the man.

Tian Dahua handled the tax issues, and after confirming that the company didn’t have any liabilities, deregistration was a simple matter. During this period, the relaxation of the regulations on private businesses resulted in a tsunami of start-ups; naturally, many of those companies closed down soon after. The Administration for Industry and Commerce employees dealt with multiple similar affairs every day and were already thoroughly familiar with the process.

Once the company was fully shut down, the 200,000 yuan guarantee was returned to Tian Dahua, clearing both sides’ accounts.

As of now, Lin Jingzhe no longer had any financial obligations. He started out with 20,000 yuan; in less than three months, he turned it into more than two million yuan in stocks and 500,000 yuan in ready money.

His current mood was impossible to describe to outsiders. After getting in the car, he leaned forward, his elbows on his knees with his face in his palms, and closed his eyes, letting out a long sigh.

“Are you tired, Mr. Lin? We’ve been running around since morning, after all.” Tian Dahua naturally didn’t know what was on his mind. He said, still feeling sorry that he hadn’t managed to persuade Lin Jingzhe in the bank just now, “Mr. Lin, you really are… I told you I would return the 10,000 yuan guarantee fee you paid me before, so why did you refuse?”

Lin Jingzhe chuckled but didn’t raise his head. He seemed tired, but the voice coming through his palms was as steady as ever. “‘Even reckonings make lasting friends’—friendship is friendship, business is business. You’re a company boss, Mr. Tian, people depend on you to eat.”

Tian Dahua couldn’t help but be moved by Lin Jingzhe’s attitude and gave a solemn nod. Seeing how fatigued the youth looked, he drove back to the hotel as smoothly as possible.

Lin Jingzhe laid down after the meal and woke up the next day. Faced with Tian Dahua’s invitation to socialize, he only said that he had things to do in Yan City and couldn’t stay any longer.

Tian Dahua still wasn’t sure of Lin Jingzhe’s background. Afraid of delaying his client’s business, he immediately asked someone to book a ticket for the next flight and rushed around, personally carrying his luggage to the car and driving him to the airport.

The entire time, Tian Dahua was beside himself with joy. This morning, the price of Aeon Technology’s shares had risen again by almost one whole yuan. Only one day after Lin Jingzhe let him board the cruise ship, he had already made a lot of money.

As they approached the security checkpoint, he thumped his chest, his heart filled with boundless excitement and ambition. “Mr. Lin, I will never forget your kindness. If there ever is anything I can do for you, please just tell me—I will go through fire and water to do it!”

Lin Jingzhe just smiled faintly. He shook hands with him. “Take care.”

On the plane, Lin Jingzhe was pondering what he should do with his two and a half million yuan.

Before he was reborn, this figure was roughly equivalent to several years of his salary—it was enough for him to buy a good car or a nice apartment in a second- or third-tier city. At present, however, the average cost of residential property in Beijing was no more than 1000 yuan per square meter; the purchasing power of over 2 million yuan was far beyond ordinary people’s imagination.

Looking back on how his last life turned out, Lin Jingzhe knew he wasn’t that smart. In the next few years, the inflation rate would rise to unprecedented levels, so he should use the money before it started to lose value. The safest way he could think of was to buy real estate in several first-tier cities. After ten or so years, when prices soared, he would earn enough to support himself for a lifetime.

He leaned his head against the window, silently watching the clouds below. Just like the plane, after he broke through the cover of dark clouds, the clear sky stretched in all directions, as far as the eye could see.

But was it really a clear sky? Images from both the past and present flashed through Lin Jingzhe’s mind and his heart swelled with defiance and stubbornness. He sighed, finding that despite receiving a miraculous chance to start all over again, he still held unrealistic expectations for the future.

Sure enough, he was a fool.

That year’s summer was hot, and the sweltering heat in Yan City was punishing.

When Lin Jingzhe returned to room 305, he found Deng Mai there.

Deng Mai currently had nothing to do and he lived close to Yan University and Wutong University, so he went wherever his fancy took him. Quite the social butterfly, he divided his time between visiting the two schools and made lots of friends in both of them.